Groupon Clone Script Software Reviews – Part 3

Note: Due to the age of this post as well as the evolution of the Groupon clone/aggregator system, RJH Solutions will no longer offer support for these systems. The “writing on the wall” was seen when Groupon’s CEO was fired early 2013. In the meantime, please continue browsing the rest of the site. -Rafi

This post is the final in my series of Groupon Clone Software reviews. With Groupon sites still maintaining popularity, many off-shore companies have raced to build their own solutions and it’s practically impossible to follow each one. However I feel like these posts have covered the most commonly used ones.

This post is a followup to the first one, which covered Contus, Alstrasoft, Agriya, Couponic, GetSocio, and GroupScript.net, as well as the second one, which covered Wroupon, Daily Deal Builder, EponWare, Groupon Clone Pro, Groupon.comClone.com, and BuildaCouponSite.com.

So without further ado, here are my reviews on Groupon Clone Pro, Groupon.comClone.com (yeah, that’s how it’s spelled), Build a Coupon Site, and FatBit.

Groupon Clone Pro

When I visited the main website, I saw that it was in Joomla based on the tab icon.

In any case, their demo site from the front-end looks promising, but there’s no explicit access to the demo site’s back-end. A Google search showed me that in the demo site, in logging in, the username/password is admin/admin123. Once in, the back-end system looks EXACTLY LIKE Agriya’s platform. Yet another clunky back-end with many bugs.

Payment gateways are Paypal and Authorize.net.

Price: N/A as they took off the Pricing page.

Groupon.comClone.com

On the home page there are buttons to guide you to the front and back-ends of the site. From a design perspective the back-end leaves much to be desired. However, everything is organized from the left side and is fairly easy to quick to pick up. The biggest problem though is that there’s no place to send out coupons, manage transactions, or manage user info!

Build a Coupon Site

http://www.buildacouponsite.com – Account was recently suspended.

Fatbit

Fatbit.com is an Indian company that offers all sorts of software coding and design solutions, as well as SEO. They have a demo of their software on redincity.com, and all the login information on the Fatbit website,

The pros is that they seem to be available on Live Chat 24 hours a day, which is a boon for many people in the US and Canada who don’t want to be up at 1 in the morning when it’s business hours in India. They also offer custom coding packages ranging from $8 to $20 per hour, depending on the number of hours per package chosen.

The cons here I find lie with the Groupon clone software. They have an interesting system where there are 2 admin logins – one for the admin and one for the specific merchant. My biggest critique is that, while it doesn’t look like there are bugs, they made it way too complicated for someone visiting it for the first time to use it. There are too many options all over the place and is far from intuitive.

Their only payment gateways are Paypal (payments standard) and Authorize.net.

The front-end looks nothing spectacular.

Pricing: $100 for the script with default template
$1500 for the script for a custom template
$2500 if the solution is custom

Final Thoughts

Once again, when dealing with off-shore companies, you will encounter software with many basic bugs. Out of all of the softwares out there, I have found Contus to be the best for the following reasons. One is that the system is built on top of Magento Community shopping cart, a stable, robust platform especially when it comes the the bottom line: transacting money. The second reason is that their support is excellent despite the time difference. Three, they are constantly adding new features to make it “feel” different than the rest of the clone websites out there.

Until you’re ready to code your own solution, Contus is the one I personally recommend. Also, it’s strongly advised to purchase a virtual dedicated server in order to process huge amounts of bandwidth from the visitors and database use.

That concludes my review of the Groupon Clone software series. I hope these reviews have guided you in the right direction in terms of which software to use.

About Rafael (Rafi) HechtRafi Hecht is a leading SEO Consultant and Web Programmer residing in Toronto. He has been in the IT workforce since 2003, and has focused on Search Engine Optimization and Web programming since 2007. Rafi holds a Bachelor of Science in Management/Information Systems from Touro's Lander College for Men as well as a Master of Science degree in Information Systems at Stevens Institute of Technology. He also is a devoted husband and father. His personal blog can be found at http://blog.rafihecht.com.

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Rafael (Rafi) Hecht

Rafi Hecht is a leading SEO Consultant and Web Programmer residing in Toronto. He has been in the IT workforce since 2003, and has focused on Search Engine Optimization and Web programming since 2007. Rafi holds a Bachelor of Science in Management/Information Systems from Touro's Lander College for Men as well as a Master of Science degree in Information Systems at Stevens Institute of Technology. He also is a devoted husband and father. His personal blog can be found at http://blog.rafihecht.com.

Far too often ‘reviews’ for GrouponClones are from the developers either promoting their software or trying to slag the opposition. FWIW I have been researching clone software the last 4 weeks and had come down to 1. Couponic 2. Contus and 3. nDot.btw buildacouponsite.com is back up.RgdsHsan.

Anonymous

Thank you Hsan. As my schedule recently has been crazy I have not had the time to update a review for buildacouponsite.com. I intend to do so once some of my time frees up.

Hsan

Contrary to what I said above, I actually went with a 4th option, Gripsell, and I am current fine-tuning the look and feel. The price was reasonable and it works well.

Gripsell’s documentation could be better (say a .pdf rather than just website-based) but other than that it so far looks pretty good. Some people have mentioned (possibly from the competition) that the code is buggy, however I haven’t found that at all.

I have contacted Support twice and they responded pretty quickly (<1 hr and 23hrs, respectively) to what I identified to them as 'Medium' priority issues. The second had about 5 technical questions.

They recently released a minor patch, so they are still active on the code, which is good… not just dump and run.

http://www.rjhsolutions.ca Rafi Hecht

All,

I am working on a Groupon Clone E-book. On my site now is a newsletter subscribe page. Go ahead and hit “subscribe” and you will be pre-notified about the release of this E-Book.

http://www.rjhsolutions.ca Rafi Hecht

All,

I am working on a Groupon Clone E-book. On my site now is a newsletter subscribe page. Go ahead and hit “subscribe” and you will be pre-notified about the release of this E-Book.

Hsan

Thanks Rafi for a great unbiased review.

Far too often ‘reviews’ for GrouponClones are from the developers either promoting their software or trying to slag the opposition. FWIW I have been researching clone software the last 4 weeks and had come down to 1. Couponic 2. Contus and 3. nDot.btw buildacouponsite.com is back up.RgdsHsan.

Anonymous

Thank you Hsan. As my schedule recently has been crazy I have not had the time to update a review for buildacouponsite.com. I intend to do so once some of my time frees up.

Hsan

Contrary to what I said above, I actually went with a 4th option, Gripsell, and I am current fine-tuning the look and feel. The price was reasonable and it works well.

Gripsell’s documentation could be better (say a .pdf rather than just website-based) but other than that it so far looks pretty good. Some people have mentioned (possibly from the competition) that the code is buggy, however I haven’t found that at all.

I have contacted Support twice and they responded pretty quickly (<1 hr and 23hrs, respectively) to what I identified to them as 'Medium' priority issues. The second had about 5 technical questions.

They recently released a minor patch, so they are still active on the code, which is good… not just dump and run.

hi there, just wondering if you have any experience with http://www.ndot.in/products/ndotdeals-opensource-groupon-clone
Thanks

Mut

I need this information too…

Btw, Getsocio takes $2000 for each additional payment system. And they’re not responsive. When talking to them you can feel their “well, don’t work with us then” attitudes…

Nat

That is discouraging to hear that about GetSocio.I was emailing back and forth last night with them and they were quite helpful.Maybe they are less helpful once you sign up?

That sounds expensive to add another payment system, but have Paypal and Authorize.net, 2 of the biggest payment gateways, so why would you need another anyway?
I was thinking of using their platform for a few months to get up and and running and then switching to another platform, possibly Daily Current as they have a lot of support and training.It is WAY more expensive and they take a larger percentage, but my thoughts are, if they have a god system in place and they help you become more profitable, then who cares?

100% of nothing (or very little) doing it on your own VS 92% or more $ created with support,training and experience in the industry seems to be a good option if you ask me. I’m sure people will disagree with this, but if it means more money in my pocket at the end of the day,then I’m cool with that.

http://www.rjhsolutions.ca Rafi Hecht

All,

I am working on a Groupon Clone E-book. On my site now is a newsletter subscribe page. Go ahead and hit “subscribe” and you will be pre-notified about the release of this E-Book.

http://www.rjhsolutions.ca Rafi Hecht

All,

I am working on a Groupon Clone E-book. On my site now is a newsletter subscribe page. Go ahead and hit “subscribe” and you will be pre-notified about the release of this E-Book.

Dan Mac

this review has been great as it sums up what i found when researching.

based on this blog i will be contacting the following companies all with the same brief of what i am after:
ndotdeals
gripsell
Couponic
Contus

in order to find not only the best product, but the best support to install and develop what we need.

we are an internet technology company, www.internetbusinesssolutions.net.au, that needs to find the right partner that can manage and develop the back end of such groupon sites.

after i speak to all 4 companies, i will come back and state which company i picked.

i have thoughts also of posting my job brief on elance to see what comes up.

I’m a recent college graduate and have started to establish a group-buying website in Australia, in regular start-up fashion we are trying to minimise costs and are opting for a clone script instead of developing our own original code.

We’re looking at going with the Contus script…they have recommended several virtual hosting services which will supposedly be adequate (GoDaddy, Gator etc) but you’ve mentioned that to not use a shared host.
What options would you recommend as a host? (Neither of us have ever set up a website so we’re complete rookies in this area)

Your advice would be much appreciated…Thanks!!

Akumar

Dave-
Email me before you buy contus script. We have recently purchased their script but now thinking of custom built solution. you can reach me at aanilkumar@gmail.com

Akumar

Rafi

We have purchased Contus Script based on this review. Just based on this review. However, we are in dilemma whether to go with customizing magento based script or go for a custom built solutions which is tailor made for our business needs (our model not 100% identical to groupon)

The tailor made solution possibly powered by codeignitor framework and would cost about 8 grand with 3 months effort from well reviewed company (based on elance and freelancer).

Pros with custom built solution:
complete command on code base
tailor made solutions
cheaper long term
easy to expand

Cons:
you would lose lot of “out of box” features
must be given detailed thought on each module (order mgmt, customer mgmt, etc)

Pros with magento or any other commerce product

lot of “Out of box” features
Rich features
Rich statistics
Ready made extensions for connecting with outer world (social media, payment gateways, SMS integration etc)

Cons
Not always easy to customize
Not many resources available on magento
may not be like tailor made solution

Although the cost is cheaper to customize magento as opposed to custom built solution but I am unable to decide. Money is no bar…any help is appreciated.

http://www.rjhsolutions.ca Rafi Hecht

All,

I am working on a Groupon Clone E-book. On my site now is a newsletter subscribe page. Go ahead and hit “subscribe” and you will be pre-notified about the release of this E-Book.

tanya

WOW- very true- id stay away from them – Getsocio- they royally screwed us over by shutting down our site…for no reason,

Akumar

Dave-
Email me before you buy contus script. We have recently purchased their script but now thinking of custom built solution. you can reach me at aanilkumar@gmail.com

http://www.rjhsolutions.ca Rafi Hecht

All,

I am working on a Groupon Clone E-book. On my site now is a newsletter subscribe page. Go ahead and hit “subscribe” and you will be pre-notified about the release of this E-Book.

Bono29

Awesome Review by Pro like you Rafi…it’s really help us “the groupon like startup”..from the first review until the latest i’m not seen Gradlee’s Daily Deal Software http://gradlees.com. Did you ever try it? Coz i ‘m looking Groupon Clone Script with CodeIgniter base. Would love to hear the review from you Rafi

Thank you very much

Bono
Jakarta, Indonesia

Bono29

Awesome Review by Pro like you Rafi…it’s really help us “the groupon like startup”..from the first review until the latest i’m not seen Gradlee’s Daily Deal Software http://gradlees.com. Did you ever try it? Coz i ‘m looking Groupon Clone Script with CodeIgniter base. Would love to hear the review from you Rafi

Thank you very much

Bono
Jakarta, Indonesia

Akumar

Rafi

We have purchased Contus Script based on this review. Just based on this review. However, we are in dilemma whether to go with customizing magento based script or go for a custom built solutions which is tailor made for our business needs (our model not 100% identical to groupon)

The tailor made solution possibly powered by codeignitor framework and would cost about 8 grand with 3 months effort from well reviewed company (based on elance and freelancer).

Pros with custom built solution:
complete command on code base
tailor made solutions
cheaper long term
easy to expand

Cons:
you would lose lot of “out of box” features
must be given detailed thought on each module (order mgmt, customer mgmt, etc)

Pros with magento or any other commerce product

lot of “Out of box” features
Rich features
Rich statistics
Ready made extensions for connecting with outer world (social media, payment gateways, SMS integration etc)

Cons
Not always easy to customize
Not many resources available on magento
may not be like tailor made solution

Although the cost is cheaper to customize magento as opposed to custom built solution but I am unable to decide. Money is no bar…any help is appreciated.

Thank you for your reply 4 months ago As it was I was involved in a very personal family situation where I was too busy to monitor comments at that time. Let me know where you are at right now and we can discuss the best platform for you to proceed with.

Amir

Fatbit has increased the price from 100$ to 499$ !!!

http://www.rjhsolutions.ca Rafi Hecht

The script gets better and better, doesn’t it?

Ash Eldritch

Thanks for the awesome info. The only other comparison I’ve found is here: cloneadvisor.com but it looks like it may be just a bit of marketing as it only really recommended Couponic. What’s your take?

http://www.rjhsolutions.ca Rafi Hecht

Not only does it look like a bit of marketing, it looks like they’ve ripped off my reviews That’s awesome!

http://www.rjhsolutions.ca Rafi Hecht

I personally have not used couponic as the back-end is clunky and they developers charge AT LEAST $35 per plugin. Plus, the Yii framework isn’t commonly used.

Sam

Pay attention
to FRAUD

If you deal with NDOT be prepared for Nightmare.
You will purchase their product with installation. But guess what? a whole NDOT
they have no any idea about any installation. They are bunch of idiot thirsty
for money and they are very ready to turn your ambition in nightmare.

http://www.rjhsolutions.ca Rafi Hecht

Thank you Sam. I personally have not had the chance to review NDot (though I promised myself I would) due to personal family circumstances. Let me know if you are interested in discussing further.

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